Hurricane Kenneth forms southwest of Baja

Late season Hurricane Kenneth forms in the eastern Pacific

Click image above to animate the most current loop

The hurricane season in the eastern Pacific isn’t over and Hurricane Kenneth serves as a reminder that the season ends November 30. NASA satellite imagery shows Kenneth more organized than it appeared on Sunday, Nov. 20 and became a late season hurricane earlier today.

Kenneth began as the thirteenth tropical depression and that formed on Saturday, November 19, about 480 miles south of Acapulco, Mexico. On Sunday, November 29 at 0300 UTC (11 p.m. EST, Nov. 19) the National Hurricane Center noted that the center of Tropical Depression 13E was further north than previously estimated and it had intensified into Tropical Storm Kenneth. Kenneth is noteworthy because it is a named storm that is one of the latest forming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in 28 years.

By 10 a.m. EST on Nov. 21, Kenneth strengthened into a hurricane. Kenneth’s maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kmh) and further strengthening is expected. Kenneth was centered about 705 miles (1135 km) south of the southern tip of Baja California, near 12.7 North and 109.6 west. It was moving to the west-northwest near 14 mph (22 kmh) and had a minimum central pressure of 989 millibars. Kenneth is forecast to turn to the west and slow down.

When the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite called “TRMM” passed over Kenneth on Nov. 21 at 15:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. EST) the instruments aboard gathered data that provided a rainfall analysis. The TRMM satellite is co-managed by NASA and JAXA, and the data was created into an image at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The image showed a ragged eye was forming.

The data from TRMM’s Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) showed heavy rainfall was occurring around Kenneth’s center. Some of the heaviest rainfall was falling at a rate of over 2 inches (50 mm) per hour. The TRMM image also revealed a well-defined band of thunderstorms wrapping in the center of circulation as Kenneth continues to strengthen.

49 thoughts on “Hurricane Kenneth forms southwest of Baja”

“Kenneth is noteworthy because it is a named storm that is one of the latest forming in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in 28 years.”
——————————————
28 years! What more proof do you need of Global Climate Cooling Change Acidification Warming?

Has anyone considered that late 20th century warming of 0.7C could have been caused installation of SO2 scrubbers causing the removal of an unrecognised anthropogenic crelative boling?
I mean, is that possible? Anyone have any numbers?

I wonder if anyone has actually looked at the effect of scrubbing SO2 from chimney emissions for the last forty or so years? It has certainly reduced the acid rain over Scandinavia and Europe, but I read somewhere that it had also changed the reflectivity of cloud cover. So instead of reflecting solar energy, I think it was said to be actually absorbing more.

Seems to me that meddling on the peripheries has unintended consequences somewhere else – and as I sit shivering in Europe, I don’t think we’re getting warmer …

I can almost imagine a Hollywood producer making a grade B disaster movie predicated on an unusual shift in offshore currents allowing a category four Pacific hurricane to make landfall at Los Angeles. It might include dramatic scenes of his main competitor’s studio lot being engulfed by the massive storm surge.

Sea Surface Temperatures in the Eastern Pacific are average to below average due to the raging La Nina. Tropical Cyclone Ocean Heat content is below normal. Kenneth has nothing to do with climate change, but instead with the ongoing La Nina.

I think, Ryan, that that will escape the notice of the main stream media and the warmists, as every little anomaly or apparent weather abnormality brings them shrieking “Global Warming” or “Man-Made Climate Change”, without reference to the science and the facts. That trend has gone on for far too long to change quickly.

Another kind of hurricane appeared at CA on the Anderson Cooper thread. The contents I’ve now looked at are pretty stunning, just like last time. The energy of this zip file once again feels clean as well as reports clean to checks for virus, malware etc.

The only disappointment about the article from my view are its limited comment on the implicationsI think they will be huge. It is this (uncorrected) warmth that has been the basis for so much of the interest in solar contributions to climate change, so that will be seriously impacted, getting us back to where many of us think we should be, with solar changes in heating being weighted about equally with GHG changes in heating and not having to search out all sorts of exotic feedbacks to show how a small solar change could have a disproportionately large effect. So, I think it will mean the detection-attribution studies weigh solar less and find the human influence going back further in time.

Many of the Skeptics have also using that early 1940s level to be the end of natural warming post the Little Ice Age, saying human influences played little early role (though methane concentration was up a lot, and CO2 some, so there was actually a significant forcing prior to the early 1940s, but its influence was misestimated as there was this focus on the Sun (how it can be so constant is truly amazing, but that is what it appears).

I think there was also an important and unfortunate psychological result of the 1940s high pointnamely it hid the early human influences and so let the argument be made that natural variability (internal and external) was larger than it has been, so the problem was not as bad as it really is. I have for quite a number of years asked people to put their finger over the WWII period and then look at the global record, and one gets a quite different impression of what has been happening and its relation to human activities, etc. Basically, now, it will seem much more evident that human activities started earlier.

I think the new result will also affect the estimate of the aerosol offsetthe only way to be explaining the mid-20th century was with a pretty large sulfate cooling. Now, that wont be nearly so necessary, likely making that aerosol effect smaller, which will be interesting. It will therefore also affect the ideas about geoengineering with sulfate aerosols.

And finally, the result may help in figuring out why estimates of sea level rise during the 20th century have been so far below observationsIPCCdrawing from the model results–could only explain a small share of 20th century rise. Less sulfate and solar influence and more even warming over time might well help in this regard.

“I really wish I could be more positive about the Kyrgyzstan material,
but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk
something out of that. It was pretty funny though – I told Malcolm
what you said about my possibly being too Graybill-like in evaluating
the response functions – he laughed and said that’s what he thought
at first also. The data’s tempting but there’s too much variation
even within stands. I don’t think it’d be productive to try and juggle
the chronology statistics any more than I already have – they just
are what they are (that does sound Graybillian). I think I’ll have
to look for an option where I can let this little story go as it is.”

RE Ron House: (November 22, 2011 at 5:56 am)“I have for quite a number of years asked people to put their finger over the WWII period and then look at the global record, and one gets a quite different impression of what has been happening…”

It has been my understanding that maritime temperature averages recorded during the war are likely to be atypical because shipping traffic patterns were disrupted during that time.

I’ve read a snippet of these latest emails. The thing that is damning about them is the amount of energy that goes into presenting a political case rather than a scientific one. The emails display a group of people for whom impartiality and objectivity has gone out the window. These are supposed to be scientists for heavens sake, but this looks much more like a PR campaign. It is a sad day for science in general and for climate science in particular.

RE Ron House: (November 22, 2011 at 5:56 am)
“I have for quite a number of years asked people to put their finger over the WWII period and then look at the global record, and one gets a quite different impression of what has been happening…”

Also consider that HadCRUT3 shows a periodic component peaking during WWII and also peaking recently. That periodic component can account for about 40% of the reported warming in the 1973-2005 stretch. I suspect this periodic item is Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, possibly combined with a long-period-subpart of Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

One other thing: About 20% of the greenhouse gas effective increase prior to 2005 was in gases other than CO2, and increases of those were largely stopped in the 1990’s.

Polistra says:
“I’ve always wondered why these Pacific and Mexican hurricanes never hit San Diego or LA. Often they seem to be heading in that direction, but they never get that far north. What stops them?”

Usually it’s the ocean being insufficiently warm there. Hurricanes generaqlly need ocean surface temperature atound 26-26.5 degrees C or warmer. Rarely, the ocean surface is sufficiently warm but only to highly insufficient depth – so that the storm’s winds cause the ocean surface to be too cool before the central part of the storm arrives. For another thing – westerly wind sheer is usually an obstacle there to hurricanes.

RE: polistra: (November 22, 2011 at 3:53 am)“I’ve always wondered why these Pacific and Mexican hurricanes never hit San Diego or LA. Often they seem to be heading in that direction, but they never get that far north. What stops them?”

I believe Donald Klipstein (November 22, 2011 at 4:20 pm) is correct, the normal interaction of the wind and the ocean currents along the West Coast cause the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths.

To be halfway accurate, a Los Angeles hurricane disaster movie would have to presume that something like a super El Nino would be wafting unusually warm water into the region. Of course, films only need to be plausibly accurate. If New York can have a hurricane, the producers might feel slighted if L.A. can’t have one too.